When Carter Met Coulson
by Cora Clavia
Summary: what it says on the tin.


Rejected titles included "Two Of My Personal Heroes Meet" and "The Ultimate I Heart Cap Fanclub."

a/n: I haven't read the comics; the entirety of my knowledge is based on Agents of SHIELD, Agent Carter, and the movies. I did read pertinent Marvel cinematic universe wiki pages, and I've done my best to be faithful. Any mistakes in canon are mine.

* * *

 _Oct. 27, 1989_

"Carter?"

Peggy looks up from her desk, pulling off her glasses. "Hmm?"

"Sorry to interrupt." Jacobs nods at the sheaf of papers she's reading. "Is that his file?"

"It is." She sets it on her desk. "I'm impressed. No one thought this mission would work. He did an outstanding job."

"He did." Jacobs is a big man, broad-shouldered, with enough hair and beard and shoulders to fill her entire doorway. She always wonders if he finds doors too small. "He's young, but I called his supervisors over at the Academy. Came to us straight out of high school. He's got a bright future ahead of him."

"I couldn't agree more. Is he here?" Jacobs nods again. It's the majority of his body language. "I'd like to meet him."

"Sure thing. I'll send him up."

Her colleague ducks out, and Peggy has only time to put away the file before there's a tentative knock at her door. She turns, smoothing her skirt. "Yes, come in."

Phillip Coulson is young, bright-eyed, and so deeply earnest that she can't help but smile. He looks like a little boy in his suit, standing as tall as he can, and it reminds her of another young man she met once, a short, scrawny, sweet guy named Steve whose geography of Brooklyn was based on where he got beat up, when, and by whom.

Coulson stands at attention in front of her desk, beaming, shaking her hand a little too zealously. "Agent Carter. It's such an honor."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Agent Coulson. I've heard great things about your work. You performed admirably in Cartagena."

"Thank you. Ma'am."

The pause before _ma'am_ reminds her - she's old. _Ma'am_ belongs to her generation, not his. He's twenty-five, according to his file. A native of the Midwest, that open-sky country of fresh air and farmland. Exceptional scores in every test at the Academy, from linguistics to marksmanship.

And he looks like he's already drunk all of this week's coffee.

"Please have a seat, Mr. Coulson."

He settles into the chair across from hers, sitting upright like a schoolboy, clearly determined to answer everything correctly.

"Tell me about you."

He looks at her like she's speaking Czech. "I'm sorry?"

She waves a hand dismissively. "I've read your file. You're clearly a qualified agent, and what you lack in experience, you'll get eventually. I want to know about Phillip Coulson, the person. Not just the agent."

* * *

She wants to know about him?

When Jacobs had poked his head into the office and told him _Carter wants to meet you_ , Phil had nearly had a heart attack.

Margaret Carter - he knows she goes by _Peggy_ , but it doesn't sound nearly dignified enough for the woman in front of him - is what he thinks must be the definition of _elegant_. She looks like time has stood still; her greying hair is neatly pinned back, her navy jacket pressed smooth, her hands perfectly manicured, red lipstick pristine. It's 1989, but looking at her, it might still be 1945. It's hard to level this classy woman with the stories he's heard, the wildcat, deadly Miss Union Jack who fought like a banshee. Veterans of the 107th have talked about her in the old days. Phil has heard stories of her taking out Hydra agents with lamps, bottles, shoes, telephones, letter openers, anything she could lay hands on in a fight. She was the youngest undercover operative the SSR ever had, and she was fearless.

By comparison, he feels roughly as interesting as a turkey sandwich on Wonder Bread.

"Well, I was born in Wisconsin. In Manitowoc. I joined SHIELD right out of high school." He's blanking. Surely there's more about him. Does she want a list of his Boy Scout merit badges? "I guess - I'm not exactly sure what you want to know."

She purses her lips. "What brought you to SHIELD?"

"Captain America."

The answer slips out almost unconsciously. Maybe it's too eager, but meeting one of the founders of SHIELD is doing embarrassing things to Phil's usually-erudite brain.

May as well explain himself before she hands him a juice box and sends him home.

"When I was a kid, he was my hero. So when the SHIELD recruiter showed up -" he shrugs. "I didn't think twice."

He looks up to see what effect his naive confession has on the woman in front of him (damn, he sounds like a little kid; is anyone ever going to take him seriously?), but what he sees surprises him.

There's a stunned look on her face, like she's been hit hard in the stomach, and in the three seconds it takes him to figure it out, Phil could hit himself.

 _Shit_.

"I'm so sorry, ma'am - I - I know you knew him."

 _Knew him_. Peggy Carter was one of his original handlers. Phil knows the history of SHIELD. She met Steve Rogers at the SSR camp. She was there the day Howard Stark's gamble on Abraham Erskine's serum turned him into a superhero.

She was on the radio with him when he died. And she heard it happen.

"Yes, I did."

Her voice is soft, its edge gone. Her eyes are bright, though Phil doesn't see tears.

"It's all right, Agent Coulson. It was a long time ago."

Phil wants to apologize more, again, several times, but he's not sure exactly how to say _I'm sorry I reminded you of someone who died horribly in a plane crash to save millions of lives._

"You know -" she seems to have recovered; a small smile crosses her lips - "most people try not to talk about him around me. I have a feeling it's on purpose."

She's correct. The official word around SHIELD Academy is _If you ever get to meet her, for fuck's sake don't talk about Cap_. Phil just nods.

"I'm not made of glass, you know."

Given that he's heard she once knocked out three armed Hydra agents with a stapler, Phil is inclined to believe her. Besides - she's married. She has a family.

Whatever her life was when she knew the captain, she's clearly moved on.

She's smiling, her expression back to composed, and he can't help but ask.

"Agent Carter, if you don't mind telling me - what was he like?"

* * *

When everyone else asks this question, they want to know about Cap. They want to hear about the daring rescues, about the sparks and serum and gunbattles and staunch courage. But young Phillip Coulson, in a suit that's just slightly too big, is watching her expectantly. He doesn't want to know about Cap. He probably knows all about Cap. Cap was his boyhood hero.

He wants to know about Steve.

"He was kind. Steve was - he was smart. Funny. Very humble." She smiles wryly. It's been a long time since she let herself sink back into these memories. "All the fame, those movies he made - he was no movie star. He blushed every time people complimented him."

Coulson is watching her wide-eyed, his face rapt with attention.

"Most people don't know this, but he was a bit of an artist. I remember him sitting in camps between shows, just sketching." Steve could sit there patiently for what seemed like forever. She got a peek at his sketchbook once. She'd seen the sketch of a dancing monkey, but there were others. A charmingly grumpy caricature of Colonel Phillips. A tranquil forest lake they'd stumbled across once, with barely enough time to appreciate its beauty. She even saw her own face. Something like her, anyway. The woman Steve drew was beautiful. Gentle. Luminous. Wide dark eyes and a smile that didn't belong in the midst of a war.

Even now, all these years later, it still makes her throat ache.

"He was a wonderful man."

There's a long moment of silence, but it's not uncomfortable. She feels oddly at ease with this young man. He's green, fresh-faced, and too earnest not to be a bit awkward.

* * *

He's seen archival footage of Agent Carter from her earlier days in the SSR and SHIELD.

In the basement storage at SHIELD Academy, there was a dusty-but-functional old projector. It took him a while, but Phil managed to get it working, and he and some friends would sometimes dig out film reels from the SSR days. They were shoved in the back of the archives; as far as he knows, they still haven't been transferred to beta or VHS.

He remembers watching the films of Captain America in the field. He remembers one in particular, when the captain was poring over a map, compass in hand.

"I saw a film reel. From the Howling Commandos, during the war. Captain America was in it." Apparently he has yet to disconnect his mouth and his brain, because he's talking without meaning to. "He was holding a compass, and there was a photo in it. A woman." He should probably be more afraid of Miss Union Jack. He probably shouldn't be asking about men carrying her picture. He should probably shut his mouth. "She looked like you."

She arches one perfectly-formed eyebrow at him, and he almost squirms in his seat. Yes. Confirmed. He should have shut his mouth.

"You spend your time digging up relics of the cinema? Do we have nothing better for you to do?"

Phil blinks. Feels foolish. "It's not - we just -"

He doesn't want to admit that he's actually just a huge nerd. That he does this for fun. Besides, he's normally the clever one. And Agent Peggy Carter is turning him into a blithering fool.

She's about eight steps ahead of him verbally, and he wonders if maybe she didn't have a choice. If maybe, as a woman in the era of men, she learned the hard way that she had to be the clever one, every time.

"So what were you trying to ask?" At least she sounds amused. And if she hasn't slapped him already -

"Was it you? The picture in his compass?"

The impertinence of his question isn't lost on him, but this elegant woman - she reminds him a little of his mother - simply sits back in her chair, unfazed. "Yes. That was me."

"You knew about it?"

She smiles at that. "Not until we saw the film at headquarters. I was sitting next to Colonel Phillips." Phil blinks. Chester Phillips? Her fellow founder of SHIELD? "He gave me quite the earful afterwards. I didn't even realize Steve had that photo."

Phil has a lot more questions that he absolutely should not ask. There's a softness to the line of her mouth, a brightness in her eyes, and Phil knows, with blinding clarity -

 _She was in love with him_.

She looks back at him in shock, and he realizes he just said that out loud.

"I'm - I'm sorry, ma'am, I didn't -" Ah, shit. He had to go and -

"It's all right." Her voice is dry. "It was never a well-kept secret, even back then."

He wants to apologize over and over.

"At ease, Agent Coulson."

"I didn't mean to pry, ma'am."

"I know," she says quietly, folding her hands neatly in her lap. "It took time. But I've made my peace with his death."

He wonders what that's like, losing the love of your life, having years and years to feel the ache of loss. The thought gnaws at his chest.

He hopes he never finds out what that's like.

* * *

Peggy takes a long breath. She hasn't thought about Steve like this in quite some time. In retrospect, he was in her life for so short a time. It's been half a century; the world has changed, she's changed, and Steve would have changed, too.

And now this earnest, bright-eyed young boy named Phil is stirring up the long-dormant thoughts of _what might have been_.

Isn't this the legacy Steve would have wanted, though? He believed in serving the greater cause. He'd be proud to know he inspired someone, even a man who looks too young to drink legally.

* * *

The quiet stretches on, and Phil finally clears his throat. "Can I ask you something?"

" _Now_ you ask permission?"

He gulps, but she just shakes her head.

"Sorry. Of course."

"May I ask - is it true you were only twenty-one when you rescued Dr. Erskine from Castle Kaufmann?"

"I was nineteen, actually."

"Nineteen?" Undercover in a Nazi-Hydra stronghold as a teenager? Phil wonders if he's being pranked.

"I spoke German. And no one else wanted the assignment," she tells him simply, like she's talking about choosing a parking spot outside a store. "So I volunteered."

Phil can see them now: brave, noble Captain America, defender of the free world, and Miss Union Jack, daring, savvy, sharp-tongued young spy. Saving the world, one Hydra base at a time. In spite of her age, he can see the winsome woman she is, her brilliance and spirit undimmed by grey hair and wrinkles. The captain may not have had the chance, but Peggy Carter has carried his spirit, his courage, his determination into the world and made it her own. She's changed the world for him.

Phil wonders if she was sarcastic to Steve Rogers, too.

She probably was.

"What do you do outside of work, Mr. Coulson?"

The question hits him out of nowhere, and it takes him a moment to process what she's asking.

He blinks. "Outside of work?"

Nothing comes to mind.

"May I offer some advice you didn't ask for?"

He nods mutely.

"Find life outside of SHIELD, young man." Her eyes are soft, like she's remembering something. "This line of work - it gets into your blood, into your heart, and it's easy to drown in it. You'll find yourself much happier, and much healthier, if you take time to breathe. Go enjoy the world you're working hard to save."

Oh.

"I - that sounds smart."

She sits back in her chair. "Do you like music?"

"Yes."

"Go see a symphony. You might like it."

"Okay."

He's not really into classical music, but he could learn.

She glances at her watch and winces. "Oh, dear. I had a meeting with staffing. Three minutes ago."

"I don't mean to keep you." Phil leaps to his feet, buttoning his jacket. It's too big but somehow still tight. He doesn't understand suits. He'll never understand them. "But - thank you so much. This was wonderful."

"It's been a real pleasure talking to you, Agent Coulson." Unsurprisingly, she's elegant even in saying _Time for you to leave_. She offers him a strong handshake. "I expect we'll be hearing more from you."

"I hope so." Phil smiles. He likes her. "Thank you, ma'am." At least _ma'am_ is feeling more natural.

"Go on, Agent Coulson." Her eye are dancing as she puts her glasses back on. "There's plenty of world that needs saving."

He's feeling clever again. "I thought you already took care of it."

"Oh, I did. In my day." She grins at him. "But it'll be in your hands someday. Don't muck it up."

 _fin_


End file.
